Part 14

In the court on the opposite side of the church is the garden which, according to an ancient rule, no woman may enter save the "reigning queen," though after the American conquest this was extended to include the wife of the President, and the priest told us with pride that Mrs. Benjamin Harrison availed herself of the privilege. By a somewhat wide interpretation of the "reigning queen" rule, Princess Louise, wife of the Governor-General of Canada, was also admitted once upon a time. We recall a similar rule in Durham Cathedral and it seems that the monks of the Old World and New did not always feel proof against feminine charms. One of the old Franciscan fathers, however, took quite a different view of the matter.

"It seems," he said, "that since our Mother Eve, through her fatal curiosity brought upon her daughters the curse of expulsion from Eden, the Franciscan order does not subject any other woman to similar temptation."

While not permitted to enter the garden ourselves, we were able to get a very satisfactory "bird's-eye" view of it from the tower balcony.

The mission now is a Franciscan college for monks and at the time of our visit there were forty-nine brothers in all. It is a center of Catholic learning in California, having a valuable library which contains most of the sources of mission history. Among these Father Zephyrin Engelhardt labors daily upon his great work on "The Franciscan Missions of California." Of this he has already published three large volumes which are recognized as a valuable contribution to American history, and a fourth is soon to follow. There are also illuminated missals from Spain and Old Mexico and other rare volumes of considerable value.

The fathers and their students do all the work necessary to keep up their establishment and its gardens. Each one learns some particular trade or work and does not shrink from the hardest physical labor. The buildings and grounds are being improved and beautified each year and Santa Barbara seems to be the one mission where ideal conditions prevail for the care of the property and the preservation of the traditions of early days. Very appropriately it still remains in charge of the Franciscans, a rather uncommon distinction shared with San Luis Rey alone.

Santa Barbara was founded in 1786, four years after Father Serra's death. The present church was completed in 1820 and is described by Father Engelhardt as "probably the most solid structure of its kind in California." The Indian population of the mission was at its maximum in 1803, numbering seventeen hundred and ninety-two souls. The secularization decree took place in 1834, at which time the property was valued at a little in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. So notably was the Mexican program a failure at Santa Barbara that ten years later the property was restored to the padres; but the Indians were scattered, the wealth dissipated, and the building in a sad state of disrepair. Less than three hundred natives remained and these gained a living with difficulty. Three years afterwards the governor sold the property to a private party for seventy-five hundred dollars; but after the American occupation it was returned to the church.

The arcade fronting the sea, the cloisters partly surrounding the garden, and a few other portions of the original buildings remain, but the present dormitory is modern. The decree authorizing the college was issued by Rome more than fifty years ago and the restoration work proceeded but slowly, being done largely by the fathers and their students. Father O'Keefe, the kindly old priest whom we met at San Luis Rey, directed much of the work and pushed it to completion. His excellent record here resulted in his transfer to the southern mission where, as we have seen, he was also singularly successful.

Before we departed we purchased a copy of Father Engelhardt's history and left our modest contribution as well, for the Franciscan fathers, who have so faithfully labored to restore and protect this beautiful old mission and who show such courtesy to the visiting stranger, have no source of income except voluntary gifts.

Coming out, we paused awhile to admire the sunset bay from the arcade and then wended our way along flower-bordered walks to our hotel.

There is no other town of the size in California—or scarcely of any size, for that matter—that has about it such a wonderful series of drives and walks as Santa Barbara.

At the time of our first visit some of these were closed to motors and as a guide seemed almost a necessity, we decided to abandon the car for the novelty of a horse-drawn vehicle. We had no trouble at all in finding one for there were a host of Jehus on the street who recognized us as tourists at sight and eagerly hailed us as possible customers. We chose the oldest fellow of all, partly out of sympathy and partly because we liked his face, and it proved a more fortunate selection than we suspected at the time. He was an old-time Californian, having crossed the plains with his parents in 1854, when a child of six. He had an adventurous career, beginning with that time, for he was stolen from the camp by a band of Indians and recovered two days later by the pioneers after a sharp fight. He had been in the midst of the mining maelstrom and was rich and poor half a dozen times—poor the last time, he declared, and now the condition had become chronic. He had lived in Santa Barbara thirty years and not only knew every nook and corner of the town and vicinity, but could tell who lived in the houses and many bits of interesting history and gossip as well.

In the forenoon he took us among the fine homes of the millionaire residents, some of which reminded us not a little—though of course on a smaller scale—of great English estates we had visited. But in Santa Barbara they have the advantage of shrubs and trees which flourish the year round and from nearly all there is a perennial view of summer sea, always beautiful and inspiring. The grounds of many of these places are open to visitors and some are marvelously beautiful; the climate admits of great possibilities in landscape-gardening in the free use of semi-tropical shrubs, palms, flowers, and fruit trees.

Our guide then took us through the grounds of the Miramar Hotel Colony, if I may so describe it. Here a wooded hill on the shore is covered with a group of cottages, which are rented by guests who get their meals at a central building—a plan that affords the advantages of privacy and outdoor life without the cares of housekeeping.

Of course we visited the Gillespie house and gardens—"El Furiedes," which may be roughly translated as "pleasure garden"—which, after the mission, is probably the most distinctive attraction of Santa Barbara. The gardens cover about forty acres and contain a great variety of rare flowers, shrubs, and trees from all parts of the world. In places these form tangled thickets where one might easily lose himself if not familiar with the winding paths. Quiet pools play an important part in the decorative scheme, and these were beautified with rare water plants, among them the Egyptian lotus. In the center of the grounds is the house, built along the lines of a Roman villa. It is not open to visitors, but our guide declared that it contains a costly collection of antiques of all kinds. The main doors are remarkable examples of carving, dating from about 1450, and were taken from a Moorish temple in Spain. The owner of this beautiful place, a New York millionaire, said our guide, spends only a small part of his time in Santa Barbara. In the meanwhile the gardens are maintained at his expense, and are as easy of access to visitors as a public park.

Before returning to our hotel we made the round of the city and our driver pointed out some of the older and more historic buildings. Of these the de la Guerre mansion is the most notable aside from the mission itself. Here took place the marriage of Donna Anita to Senor Noriega y Carillo, so vivaciously described by Dana in "Two Years Before the Mast." It is a typical old-time Spanish residence, low, solid, and surrounding the inevitable court. We were also shown the homes of several people of more or less celebrity who live in Santa Barbara, among them Stewart Edward White, and Robert Cameron Rogers, the poet and author of "The Rosary," whose death California so sincerely mourned a little later.

There are many famous "Little Journeys" out of Santa Barbara which it would be superfluous to describe in detail. There are several good local guidebooks with maps to be had and the services of the Southern California Auto Club branch are always available. You can do most of these excursions in two or three days, including a round trip via the San Marcos Pass, to the Santa Ynez Mission, returning via Los Olivos and the Gaviota Pass. I shall describe the drive which we made on our first visit—and we made it in an old-fashioned surrey, for the road was then closed to motors. I am glad that we were forced to adopt that good old method of locomotion, as it gave us leisure to contemplate the beauties of the scenery that we should scarce have had in our car.

"Take the sixteen-mile drive," says the old driver. "It's one of the best; it is closed to autos and you can do all the rest in your car."

So it's the "sixteen-mile drive" for us, and a wonderful panorama of green hills, wooded canyons and calm, shining sea it proves to be. The road has many steep pitches and follows the edges of the hills like a narrow shelf; vehicles can pass in but few places and all are required to go in the same direction. From the summits we have many far-reaching views of hill and valley, whose brilliant greens are tempered by the pale violet bloom of the mountain lilac. It is a view very much like some we have seen and many more we are to see, but we shall never weary of it. We have gained something of the spirit of the good old John Muir. "Climb the mountains," he urges, "and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." And so, as we slowly wind about this green-bordered mountain trail, we pause at every vantage point to contemplate the view and finally the most glorious scene of all breaks on our vision, a panorama of wooded hills sloping down to the summer sea—wonderfully calm to-day, with a curious effect of light and color. Across its mirrorlike surface bars of steely blue light run to the channel islands, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, whose mountainous bulk looms in the amethystine haze of sunset some twenty miles away. Of the channel before us Mr. John McGroarty writes in his delightful "History and Romance of California":

"Nor is this all that makes the charm, the beauty, the climatic peace and calm and the fascination of Santa Barbara. Twenty-five miles out to sea a marine mountain range, twin sister of the Santa Ynez on shore, rears its glowing peaks from the tumbling billows in a series of islands. So it is that Santa Barbara faces not the open sea, but a channel or a strait of the sea. Up into this channel flows the warm ocean current from the south and so adds its beneficence to complete the climatic combination that keeps the spot snug and warm and free from all violence in winter, the selfsame combination leaving it cool and refreshing through the long, sunny summers. So, also, do the twin mountain ranges—the one on land, the other out at sea—give Santa Barbara a marine playground as safe and as placid as Lake Tahoe. The channel is a yachtsman's paradise. To its long sweep of blue waters—a stretch of seventy miles—come the Pacific-Coast-built ships of the American navy to be tried out and tested for speed and endurance."

Returning to the city, we followed Sycamore Canyon—rightly named, indeed, for throughout its length is a multitude of giant sycamores, gnarled and twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes like trees of Dante's Inferno. Scattered among them were a few majestic live-oaks, which gradually increased in numbers as we came into the beautiful suburb of Montecito, with its handsome residences and flower-spangled lawns. Our driver enlightened us on the value of some of the places offered for sale, also of numerous vacant lots just on the edge of the town. Three to five thousand per acre seemed to be the average sum that a millionaire was asked to invest should he desire to establish an "estate" here—prices quite as high as was then demanded for similar property in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. And it is not likely that values will cease to advance.

The completion of the new highway has put Santa Barbara into easy touch with the metropolis by motor car, adding still farther to its desirability as a residence town for people with leisure and money. The distance, just one hundred miles, is an easy three-hours' drive and a very popular Sunday jaunt from Los Angeles and frequent motor busses make the trip daily. All of which serve to make Santa Barbara a long-distance suburb of the Queen City to a far greater extent than it was in the days of rough roads and the "dreadful Casitas Pass," as I heard it styled more than once.

But here I am going on as if the automobile were the prime factor in making a town prosperous—and, truly, it is hard for one who has never visited California to understand what a tremendous utility the motor car has become in the life of the people. And, besides, this is a motor-travel book by an admitted automobile crank and perhaps a little exaggeration of the importance of the wind-shod steed is permissible under such circumstances.

But, all levity aside, Santa Barbara, with her unrivaled attractions, her sheltered sea, her delightful environment of mountain and forest, her matchless climate, her palms, her roses, her historic associations and—not least in our estimation—the rapidly increasing mileage of fine roads about her, is bound to receive continual additions from the ranks of the discriminating to her cultured and prosperous citizenship.

X

SANTA BARBARA TO MONTEREY

Leaving Santa Barbara for the north, we turned aside a little way out of the town into the entrance of Hope Ranch, a beautiful park which was then being exploited as a residence section. Here are several hundred acres of rolling hills studded with some of the finest oaks we had seen and commanding glorious views of the ocean and distant mountains. Splendid boulevards wind through every part of the tract. A fine road runs around a little blue lake and leads up to the country club house which stands on a hill overlooking the valley. Passing through the tract, we soon came to the ocean and, following Cliff Drive, which leads along the shore for a few miles, we found ourselves in the grounds of the Potter Hotel. The drive is an enchanting one, with views of rugged coast and still, shining sea stretching away to the dim outlines of the channel islands.

On our first trip we chose the coast road and followed a fine new boulevard for a dozen miles out of Santa Barbara—but beyond this it was a different story. Not so bad as the Los Olivos garage man declared—"the worst in California"—but a choppy trail with short, steep hills and stretches of adobe about as rough as could be from recent rains. At the little village of Gaviota this road swings inland over Gaviota Pass, though there is a shorter and more direct route to Santa Ynez, the next mission. This branches from the main road about four miles north of Santa Barbara and cuts directly across the mountains through San Marcos Pass. Probably this was the original Camino Real, since it is several miles shorter than the coast road and would present little difficulty to the man on foot or horseback, as people traveled in the brave old mission days.

On one occasion we varied matters by taking this route despite the dubious language of the road-book and the rather forbidding appearance of the mountain range that blocked our way. We found the road quite as steep and rough as represented—very heavy going over grades up to twenty-five per cent, with a multitude of dangerous corners—but we felt ourselves more than repaid for our trouble by the magnificence of the scenery and the glorious, far-reaching panoramas that greeted us during the ascent. It was something of an effort to turn from a broad, smooth boulevard into a dusty trail which was lost to view in the giant hills, though we solaced ourselves with the reflection that the boulevard continued but a few miles farther. Fording a little river—the great flood a few weeks before had swept away every vestige of the bridge—we ran for a short distance over a tree-fringed road through the valley and then began the six-mile climb to the summit of the range. Much of the way trees and shrubbery bordered the road, but at frequent intervals we came into open spaces on the mountain side which afforded some of the finest views we saw in California. The day was unusually clear and the landscape beneath us was wonderfully distinct in the morning sun. A long reach of wooded hills, dotted here and there with cultivated fields and orchards surrounding red-roofed ranch-houses, stretched down to the narrow plain along the sea. Upon this to the southward lay the town of Santa Barbara as an indistinct blur and beyond it the still shining waters of the channel running out to the island chain which cuts off the great waste of the Pacific. During our ascent we paused many times to cool our steaming motor and saw the same glorious scene from different viewpoints, each showing some new and delightful variation.

Strenuous as was the climb, it was almost with regret that we crossed the hills which finally shut the panorama of mountain and sea from our sight. The descent was even steeper than the climb, but there were frequent grassy dales starred with wild flowers which broke the sharp pitches, and many views of magnificently wild scenery down the Santa Ynez Canyon. At the foot of the grade we came to the river—a clear, shallow stream dashing over a wide boulder-strewn "wash." We followed the river valley for some miles through velvety, oak-studded meadows whose green luxuriance was dashed here and there with blue lupines or golden poppies. Coming out of the valley and winding for some distance among low, rolling hills we reached the lonely town of Santa Ynez, which we missed when going by the Gaviota Pass road. It is an ancient-looking little place, innocent of railroad trains and some four miles distant from the mission which gives it the name.

We shall never regret our trip through San Marcos Pass, but if the traveler is to make but one journey between Santa Barbara and Los Olivos, he will probably choose the coast road—the route of the state highway—and if he does not find the scenery so spectacular as that of San Marcos, he will find it as beautiful and perhaps more varied. For many miles this route closely follows the Pacific and we quite forgot the rough road in our enthusiasm for the lovely country through which we passed—on one hand the still, deep blue of the sea and on the other green foothills stretching away to the rugged ranges of the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Near the village of Naples we were surprised to see a lonely country church, solidly built of yellowish stone, standing on a hilltop. Its Norman style, with low, square tower and quaint gargoyles, seemed reminiscent of Britain rather than California. And, indeed, we learned that it was built years ago by an English resident of the locality, who doubtless drew his inspiration from the Mother Country. But, alas for his ambitions, his costly structure is now quite abandoned and serves the humble purpose of a hay-barn, though it is, and may be for ages, a picturesque feature of the landscape.

We supposed that Naples, like its southern namesake, would prove a modern seaside resort, but we found only a group of whitewashed buildings surrounding an unpretentious inn. It seemed a quiet, cleanly little hamlet and its harsh outlines were relieved by the bright colors of tangled flower-beds. A little farther we paused for our noonday lunch under a great sycamore by a clear little stream. Here some bridge timbers served opportunely for both table and seats; the air was vocal with the song of birds and redolent with the pungent odor of bay trees growing near by. It is not strange that such experiences prejudiced us more strongly than ever in favor of our open-air noonday meals.

Beyond this we passed through a quiet, dreamy country. Houses were few and the only sound was the low wash of the sea upon the rock-strewn shore. The sea was lonely, too, for not a sail or boat or even a sea-bird was to be seen. Only the endless shimmer of the quiet water stretched away in the afternoon sun to the golden haze of the distant horizon.

At Gaviota the foothills creep out to the water's edge and the road takes a sharp swing northward across the mountain range, beyond which is Santa Ynez Mission. The ascent of Gaviota Pass is rather strenuous, the road winding upwards under the overarching branches of oak and sycamore, but many vantage-points afford magnificent views. At the summit we were delighted by a wide outlook over the foothills, studded with giant oaks, stretching away to the dim blue outlines of the High Sierras, and long vistas up and down the quiet valley, whose pastoral beauty was heightened by occasional droves of sheep—a panorama not easily surpassed even in California.

The long, winding descent to the vale of the Santa Ynez was a rough one, thanks to a recent heavy rain which worked the adobe into ruts and gutters. The road was heavily shaded much of the way and was still wet in spots, which, with the sharp hidden turns, made extreme care necessary—if there is any particular road I should wish to avoid it is a wet mountain grade. (I may interject that all of the foregoing is obsolete now; a broad cement highway crosses the Gaviota.)

Just beyond the river we caught a gleam of white-washed walls standing in a grassy plain—the lately restored mission of Santa Ynez. The white-haired padre greeted us warmly, for every visitor, be he Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Gentile, is welcome.

"We are glad, indeed, to see you," he said. "Santa Ynez is a lonely place and our visitors do much to break the monotony of our lives."

To him it was a labor of love to tell the history of the mission and of his own connection with it, nor did he attempt to conceal his pride over the work he had accomplished. He first directed our attention to the beauty of the site—the fertile plain with luxuriant green fields and fruit-tree groves, surrounded by a wide arc of mountain peaks with rounded green foothills nearer at hand. Through the center of the valley, but a few hundred yards from the mission, flows the tree-fringed Santa Ynez River, a stream of goodly volume in the springtime and well stocked with mountain trout.